The Common Wealth Awards of Distinguished Service (or Common Wealth Awards) were created under the will of the late Ralph Hayes, an influential American business executive and philanthropist. Hayes conceived the awards to reward and encourage the best of human performance worldwide. Hayes served on the board of directors of PNC Bank, Delaware's predecessor banks from 1935 to 1965. Through the Common Wealth Awards, he sought to recognize outstanding achievement in eight disciplines: dramatic arts, literature, science, invention, mass communications, public service, government and sociology. The awards also provide an incentive for people to make future contributions to the world community.

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Demonstrating unusual academic ability in his youth, Ralph Hayes developed into a gifted executive whose career would take him to the Office of the United States Secretary of War in Washington, D.C., into the motion picture industry, publishing and banking and to the top echelons of the Coca-Cola Company. For 35 years, he was a Coca-Cola executive, serving as secretary-treasurer, vice president, and as a director of Coca-Cola International. He served on the board of directors of the Bank of Delaware (now PNC Bank) from 1943 to 1965, having previously served as a Director of its predecessor, The Equitable Trust Company, from 1935 to 1943. Hayes also had a long and distinguished career of public service. He was a chairman of the James Foundation, president of Community Funds, Inc., and a longtime director of the New York Community Trust. Service to his fellow man was always uppermost in Ralph Hayes' mind. He died in 1977 at the age of 82, leaving the Common Wealth Awards as but one part of his charitable legacy.[1]

Since 2000, more than twenty lucky Delaware high school students have met and talked to the winning world leaders through the Common Wealth Award Writing Contest. Four winners of the writing contest and their parents or guardians are invited each year to the Common Wealth Awards ceremony, where the honorees are recognized for their lifetime achievement. As time allows, students are often able to talk directly with the winners.